A study in Fieldwork
How might we design a service that delivers financial wellness?
This is a documentation of my process during our Fieldwork module at the UX Upskill program at Hyper Island. The focus has been to get to know our users and find out what their needs and obstacles are, synthesize the data and create design principles and recommendations for the next steps.
Challenge
Company X wants to create a new service for a target group with a little extra money building up in their account and are open to new ways of approaching their finances. “Is there a better way to save or invest?” “Can a bank offer value that is meaningful for their lifestyle?” The target group isn’t quite sure what it all means yet but is definitely open to the new possibilities.
How might we design a service that delivers financial wellness?
The process
An overview of my process
This project focus on the first half of the double diamond design process.
Kick-off workshop
I started off by using the kick-off board canvas. It’s a great tool to get started and capture the vision and the product strategy so that all team members are on the same page.
The Kick-off canvas board.
The intention here is not to be too selective and narrow things down, but to be open-minded. These statements are for now based on desk research and assumptions, and will, later on, be validated, or invalided.
Target group
• People in the age of 25–30 years
• Have a steady income
• Starting to think about their future but don’t have solid financial plan
• Digi-savvy and open to new tools and services •
Needs
At the moment, I don’t know a lot about who they really are and what their needs are. The following needs are mainly based on assumptions. I will, later on, find out if we are right or wrong.
• Trust
• Control
• Motivation
• Knowledge
• Result
• Flexibility
• Time-saving services
• Up to date design
A prioritization graph in relation to what is known/unknown and important/not important. At this moment, we don’t know if any of these hypotheses are true or not or how important they are to our users.
Critical features for success and motivation for business behind the product.
The experiment guide
Time to start formulating our hypothesis and then create interview questions in order to find out if these statements are wrong or right. This I did with the help of the experiment guide canvas. Here I state how I will know if my hypotheses are right or wrong and formulate questions that will validate or invalidate them.
The biggest questions for me at this moment is:
• Do our users need help with saving/investing more wisely or do they just need help to start saving more?
• Do they need help to control their spending?
• What is stopping them from improving their financial health?
Find the right users to interview
Once we have all our hypotheses and our questions in an interview guide, we need to find the right people to interview. I created a screener survey and sent out on my social channels to get hold of the right target group.
I managed to find 7 people to interview that fitted into the target group:
• 25–30 years old
• Steady income
• Not 100% in control of all their spendings
• At least some sort of interest in learning how they can improve their financial health
I held two interviews IRL and five remote using Zoom and a transcribing tool called Trint.
A discussion guide for the interviews.
Key insights from the interviews
When going through my transcripts I started to find some patterns that help me find out what direction to go.
Our users like old habits. They use normal savings accounts within their bank because they always have, it’s comfortable and familiar.
Our users lack of knowledge causes doubtfulness. They need guidance on how to start investing more wisely. They don’t want details and have no wish of becoming experts, they just need basic knowledge that gives them the confidence and motivation to get started.
Our uses require services that feel personal and can be adapted to their preferences and needs.
The card sorting
At the end of the interviews, I gave the users the task of sorting different cards with ideas within personal finances and place them on a scale based on importance. This tool is used to awake more interesting discussions and finding more insights about their thoughts and behavior. Here is the result:
Key takeaways from the card sorting:
• Our users are positive, but not desperate for features that trigger motivation
• Our users don’t want support when it comes to spending. They feel satisfied with their current situation.
• Our users need basic knowledge about investing, not expertise advice
Synthesis
Hypothesis > Experiment > Questions > Quotes > Insight > Principle > Confidence > HMW
Out of my five hypotheses:
• 1 true and a big issue for the user
• 1 true but turned out not to be an important issue for the user.
• 1false but still led to one of my key insights.
• 2 I did not manage to get enough validation from the majority of the users to prove me right or wrong.
3 key insights, that ended up in 3 recommendations for the next step.
Next step
In the next step we would start entering the second half of the double diamond design process.
Reflections
• This was my first ever UX project only focusing on research. Being aware that I will not work on the solution I think helped me stay focused and less biased when doing my research. Sometimes I find it tempting to start looking at the solution a little too early, but not this time.
• Organization, organization, organization. Wow, It’s crazy how important this is when working with user research. I have learned so much and for the first time, I feel confident in my research process.
• TRUST THE PROCESS
• I can’t wait to dig into my next fieldwork challenge :)
• And last but not least, a big THANK YOU to our teacher Martina Tranström for all inspiration and guidance through this module. You have been amazing!